Early Photography of China Collection: A highly important collection in development.. Various places, 1850s-1930s

The most valuable collection of early China photography in private hands, the Early Photography of China Collection includes the greatest masterworks of China photography by the foremost photographers working in China in the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the 20th century. The collection has been assembled over the course of many years, and we continue to expand and refine it as worthy photographs and archives become available. This collection, unrivaled in quality and extent in private hands, provides a unique opportunity to own one of the greatest collections of Chinese photography extant. We are eager to acquire important China photographs, from individual objects to albums and collections. We invite you to contact us.

Collection in development

The Great West Illustrated in a series of photographic views across the continent, taken along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, west from Omaha, Nebraska. New York: [by D. H. Prime] Published by Authority of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, 1869

First edition. One of the monuments of American photography, and Russell’s masterpiece, The Great West documents the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad and the land through which it ran. The 50 splendid large format albumen photographs depict scenes along the railroad, which ran from Omaha, through Wyoming and Utah, and ended in Sacramento.

$350,000

Magnificent Album of Mammoth Photographs of the American West, with other subjects. various, ca. 1865-1880s

This magnificent American West photograph album contains an astounding 21 mammoth photographs by leading photographers including Carleton Watkins, Charles R. Savage, and Isaiah West Taber, as well as other important photographs.

$350,000

Large Format Camera from Mathew Brady’s Studio. New York, c. 1850s

A major relic of photographic history, this camera was owned by Mathew Brady during his years as the leading figure in American photography. Brady was the preeminent American portrait photographer of his day. He gained his greatest fame with his studio’s documentation of the events and figures of the Civil War. This camera’s association with Brady and his studio, which produced hundreds of iconic portraits and thousands of Civil War photographs, makes it an important historical artifact.

$250,000

An extraordinary collection of photographs of Central Park by its first official photographer. New York, 1862

Pioneering photographs of Central Park. One of the earliest photographers to work in New York

$135,000

Collection of four photograph of the execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Washington, July 7, 1865

A monumental event in American photographic history: the hanging of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Series of Gardner’s execution photographs are rarely seen. The only other collection we have seen for public sale in years, a group of four prints, sold for $100,000 (Swann Galleries, October 17, 2013, lot 18.

$65,000

Photographs of the Holy Land comprising the following volumes: [I:] Sinai and Palestine; [II:] Lower Egypt, Thebes, and the Pyramids; [III:] Upper Egypt and Ethiopia.. London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh: William MacKenzie, [1862]

A handsome set of Frith’s photographs. This edition’s gold-toned photographs are preferred over the earlier editions for their “stronger quality” (Gernsheim).

$55,000

Portrait of Charles Darwin, signed by Darwin and by Cameron. Cameron, [1868]

THE ICONIC PORTRAIT OF CHARLES DARWIN, boldly signed by Charles Darwin and by Julia Margaret Cameron.

$52,000

Daguerreotype Portrait of Baltus Stone. [Philadelphia], 1846

This remarkable portrait of Revolutionary War veteran Baltus Stone is one of the very few daguerreotypes of a person who had lived in colonial America.

$50,000

Panorama of San Francisco from California St. Hill. San Francisco: Morse’s Gallery, 1877

“One of the supreme conceptual and technical achievements in the history of architectural photography.” – David Harris

This iconic, 7-foot long image of San Francisco is one of the landmarks of 19^th-century American photography. “The photographs show the extraordinary extent of a city that had come into existence a mere thirty years before and which would be destroyed by earthquake and subsequent fires thirty years later” (Getty Museum Journal). Seamlessly combining a series of eleven photographs, Muybridge created a 360 degree view of the city, producing what Rebecca Solnit calls “an impossible sight, a vision of the city in all directions, a transformation of a circular space into a linear photograph.”

$45,000